Two grizzly bear mortalities were recently reported inside the demographic monitoring area of Montana's portion of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE).

A grizzly bear was reportedly shot and killed in a self-defense situation on Oct. 25 in Indian Creek of the Madison Range. The person involved in the incident left the site and contacted Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks law enforcement officers. No people were injured during the incident.

FWP staff confirmed the bear mortality. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) is investigating the incident with assistance from FWP. 

The USFWS and FWP are also investigating a separate human-caused grizzly bear mortality in the Madison Range that happened on Oct. 30. Because the incident is currently under investigation, no further information is available at this time.

Grizzly bears are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and managed by the USFWS. Known and probable grizzly bear mortalities in the GYE can be found on the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team's website: https://go.usa.gov/xGwAJ.

Although it’s late into the fall and there’s snow on the ground, grizzly bears can still be active. If you are recreating in the western half of Montana, please be prepared to encounter a grizzly bear. This includes:

• Carry bear spray and know how to use it.
• Stay alert and look for bear activity, especially where visibility and hearing are limited.
• Travel or hunt in groups and, if possible, avoid travel at dawn and dusk.
• Make your presence known by making noise. If hunting, make sure to be extra cautious of your surroundings to avoid a surprise encounter.
• Avoid carcass sites and scavenger concentrations.
• If you're successful in harvesting an animal, remove it from the field as quickly as possible. If you have to leave part of the carcass overnight, hang it in a tree in a spot you can observe from several hundred yards away so as not to surprise a bear when you return.

BOZEMAN, Montana (November 20, 2020) – It is no secret that the Gallatin Valley is expanding rapidly and that this growth is putting significant pressure on existing infrastructure. Fortunately, the Montana Department of Transportation is helping travel flow easier, one project at a time. The Department announced today that two-way travel on Rouse Avenue from Main Street to Oak Street is now fully open.

“Road users can now breathe a sigh of relief as we have completed improvements to the roadway, meaning no more major closures on Rouse Avenue,” William Fogarty, Butte District Administrator for the Montana Department of Transportation, stated. “That said, Rouse Avenue residents can expect to see workers on the side of the road this upcoming spring as we put the finishing touches on the Rouse Ave – Main to Oak project.”

 
Work during the spring of 2021 will include finishing sidewalks, pouring concrete entrances, landscaping, and fully clearing the area of construction equipment. Drivers may see flaggers in place to assist with travel around workers, but no major lane closures are expected. Pedestrians and cyclists should exercise caution when traveling on Rouse Avenue as sidewalks are not fully complete and the newly constructed bike lane may not be fully available as crews work on the side of the road.


The Rouse Avenue – Main to Oak project is a full reconstruction of Rouse Avenue from Main Street to Oak Street. Drivers can now utilize a center turn lane throughout the corridor. Crews also completed a much-needed storm drain replacement, installed two new box culverts – tunnel-like structures – over Bozeman Creek, upgraded several traffic signals and intersections, and rebuilt the multiple layers of road itself. 

Those looking for more information on the Rouse Ave – Main to Oak project are advised to email takami@bigskypublicrelations.com or call the project hotline at (406) 207-4484. More information can also be found online at bitly.com/rouseavenue.
 
Alternative accessible formats of this document will be provided upon request. Persons who need an alternative format should contact the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Transportation, 2701 Prospect Avenue, PO Box 201001, Helena, MT 59620. Telephone 406-444-5416 or Montana Relay Service at 711.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologists will capture mountain goats in the Bridger Range next month as part of a study that will help inform mountain goat and habitat management.

The project will entail capturing 30 mountain goats, sampling them and outfitting them with GPS collars. The captures are scheduled to happen between Dec. 10 and 18.

One of the purposes of the capture is to assess the overall health of the mountain goat population, including their infection with respiratory and other pathogens and parasites, their body condition and pregnancy rates. Another purpose is to collect mountain goat movement data to understand their seasonal ranges and movement corridors and evaluate the effects of human recreation on goat habitat use.

FWP staff conduct similar capture projects each year throughout Montana to better understand wildlife health, movement and habitat. These studies provide meaningful data that inform wildlife management and highlight opportunities for habitat enhancement in many places.

The Bridger Range has held a healthy population of mountain goats since they were introduced in 1969. The most recent mountain goat classification survey in 2019 found an all-time high of 127 goats in the Bridgers. This herd provides recreation opportunities for many wildlife enthusiasts.

People who live and recreate in the Bridgers may see a helicopter in the area during the mountain goat capture project. FWP asks people who recreate here to keep their distance from the helicopter.

Hunter success picked up over the fourth weekend of the general deer and elk hunting season in southwest Montana, with fresh snow that made tracking wildlife easier in some places.
 
Wildlife biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks operated several check stations during all or part of the fourth weekend of the season — Nov. 14 and 15. In total, biologists met with 776 hunters (an increase of about 200 hunters from the previous weekend) at check stations in Cameron, Gallatin, Divide and the lower Blacktail Deer Creek watershed.

Biologists use check stations to collect data on hunters’ participation, success and wildlife observations, as well as the species, sex and age class of the animals harvested. This supplements data collected through hunter harvest phone surveys.
 
This was the busiest weekend at the Cameron station this season, with 313 hunters, but hunter numbers here remained below the long-term average. Hunter success at the Cameron check station was 11.8 percent. The Gallatin check station saw 103 hunters, and hunter success there more than doubled from the previous week to 14.6 percent. The Divide check station saw 224 hunters, with a hunter success rate of 8.5 percent. Nine percent of the 136 hunters that came through the check station on lower Blacktail Deer Creek were successful.

 
Over the weekend, biologists checked 50 elk, 18 mule deer and 7 white-tailed deer, among other species.
 
These figures do not account for different hunting season regulations over the years, which have varied from liberal to restrictive for elk and mule deer, depending on population status.

The chronic wasting disease sampling station in Bozeman has been closed due to COVID-19.

This station was located at FWP’s Bozeman office, 1400 S. 19^th Ave.

Hunters who need help collecting CWD samples from their harvested deer, elk or moose can find alternative sampling station locations at https://buff.ly/35vFbWh. Hunters can also access resources from FWP on how to collect and submit samples themselves by visiting https://go.usa.gov/x7EGX.

Simulation in Motion Montana (SIM-MT) has received a $20,000 award from the Sibanye-Stillwater Community Giving program. This award will allow for simulation training services for up to eight EMS/fire agencies in the catchment area of south central Montana Sibanye-Stillwater operations.

The rural agencies who will benefit from SIM-MT’s world-class simulation training are the primary 911 response for more than 7,000 square miles of south central Montana, including response for mine employees. As a result of this grant, the eligible first responders will receive sophisticated, high-fidelity simulation training to prepare them to more effectively respond to injuries. “Sibanye-Stillwater is so grateful for its local emergency responders, many of whom are graciously donating their time and skills as volunteers, and believes this training will enable these emergency responders to give back even more to our local communities,” says Marlena Ferguson of Sibanye-Stillwater.

Beneficiaries of this training are not just first responders. In fact, the primary benefit will be for patients needing critical care in these rural communities. High fidelity simulation training improves first responders’ abilities to provide effective immediate treatment at the site of an accident and/or in transit to a hospital, which is crucial to improving positive outcomes for all patients. SIM-MT brings that level of training to EMS agencies’ front doors. 

The Helmsley Charitable Trust will match this gift dollar for dollar, which will support SIM-MT in reaching additional facilities and responders across the state. “SIM-MT, along with its project partner, Best Practice Medicine, is excited for the opportunity to provide training to first responder agencies in south central Montana and grateful for the support of Sibanye Stillwater in our efforts to do so,” said Sara Kaull, Interim Executive Director of SIM-MT. “This grant from Sibanye-Stillwater, and the match provided by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, are critical to our ability to bring this caliber of high fidelity simulation training directly to underserved first responder agencies in Montana.”

For more information on SIM-MT’s mobile simulation services, visit our website: www.simmt.org. 

BOZEMAN – Hunter numbers and success continue to vary in southwest Montana as recent snowfall facilitated some harvest opportunity while creating challenges for travel and access.
 
Wildlife biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks operated several check stations during all or part of the third weekend of the season — Nov. 7 and 8. In total, biologists met with close to 600 hunters at check stations in Alder, Cameron, Gallatin and Divide.
 
Biologists use check stations to collect data on hunter participation and success, as well as the species, sex and age class of the animals harvested. This supplements data collected through hunter harvest phone surveys.
 
The Alder check station saw 233 hunters, 14 percent of whom harvested an animal. This was the highest success rate for hunters at this check station so far this year. The Cameron check station saw 206 hunters, with a success rate of 6.4 percent, slightly lower than the long-term average of 7.8 percent. The Gallatin check station, which operated only on Nov. 7, saw 57 hunters, 7 percent of whom were successful. 

In a preliminary total, biologists checked about 28 elk, 18 mule deer and 7 white-tailed deer, among other species.
 
These figures do not account for different hunting season regulations over the years, which have varied from liberal to restrictive for elk and mule deer, depending on population status.
 

Convert Mp4 to Mp3 on Evano easily! Extract audio files in high 320kbps quality from online Mp4 videos, concerts, music clips. Best free Mp4 to Mp3 converter! Convert to Mp3 audio file ready for car sound system, phone, tablet, or music player. Convert dozens of Mp4 files to Mp3 at once. Evano the only freeware which can convert Mp4 to Mp3 files swift & keeps its original audio quality! 100mb limits and super simple!

One of the primary uses of this tool is to try and convert a music video to an Mp3 file. Which generally means a shorter, 3-5 minute video that will have a relatively small file size. If you do not want the video anymore and want to split the audio and video from each other and just keep the video, this tool will allow you to do this very quickly. You will need to have the video file on your device to do this. Taking the video from YouTube or any other website is not possible using Evano. You must download the video first. Since these videos are already the correct format, it will be easy to convert mp4 to mp3 without any troubles.

While modern smartphones and desktops can handle all kinds of high-quality audio formats, Mp3 is still one of the most popular audio formats used by average users. If you are one of those users who prefer to listen to their music than watch it, you can use an Mp4 to Mp3 converter app to convert your favorite video tracks into Mp3 format. Using an Mp4 to Mp3 converter, you can save a video file into an audio file. There are several Mp4 to Mp3 converters online and offline that can help you to change the media file into an audio.

Mp4 is a short form of MPEG-4 which stores audio, video, image, and other data like text. Mp4 came into existence in 2001 based on MOV, and the current version of Mp4 was released in 2003.

Mp3 is a short form for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. Mp3 is always smaller than the Mp4 file. According, if you are saving music audio for use on portable players, or your audio player, a smartphone is getting full, you should convert Mp4 to Mp3.

There are a variety of free file converters you can use directly in your browser or download to your desktop. Read on to learn about Evano and follow instructions on how to convert your Mp4 using the Evano converter.

Step 1: Navigate to Evano
The Evano homepage is the best place to start. Evano is an intuitive, online-based service that provides a stand-alone option that requires little more than an internet connection and your file. It’s entirely free, requires no additional software to run, and supports quick conversion between more than 20 formats — most importantly in our case, Mp4 to Mp3.

While the resulting audio quality is great, as is the conversion speed, a free account can only handle files less than 100MB in size.

Step 2: Click the Select File button in the middle of the page and select the video files you wish to convert to Mp3. A pop-up window will appear where you can locate or search for the desired files on your computer. You can also choose a file from a URL or your Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive to download video with Evano. Once your data are selected, click the Open button in the lower-right corner to add the file to the conversion queue.

Step 3: Click the drop-down arrow button that appears after uploading your Mp4 file, then select audio followed by Mp3 from the drop-down list. Click the wrench icon located directly beside the data if you wish to fine-tune the audio bit rate (up to 320kbps), channels, frequency, normalization, or trim the new file to a specified length. The latter is an incredibly handy tool if your video has an introduction or ending with undesired audio. When finished, click the okay button. It may take some time, but Evano Converter will notify you when your conversion completes. Then click the green Download button and select a save destination for the file. Now that you ripped your audio, you need a decent Mp3 player to play it on.

Montana State University has been selected to lead a two-year study about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses, the largest group of U.S. health care workers, focusing on changes in employment, earnings and the supply of nurses. The study is being funded by grants totaling $430,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation, the Johnson & Johnson Foundation in partnership with the Johnson & Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation and UnitedHealth Group.  

The study is being led by Peter Buerhaus, professor in the MSU College of Nursing and director of the MSU Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies, along with co-researchers Douglas Staiger, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, and David Auerbach, senior director of research and cost trends at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.

“Over the last century, nurses have faced many shocks, including world wars and economic recessions, but they have not experienced a pandemic in modern times,” Buerhaus said. “For the country’s well-being, it is critical to track and understand the effects of COVID-19 on the nursing workforce.”

There are approximately four million registered nurses and 200,000 nurse practitioners across the nation, and they are supported by more than 600,000 licensed practical nurses and hundreds of thousands of nursing assistants working in countless care delivery settings.

The study will research whether employment in certain settings grew during the pandemic, assess regional differences and seek to better understand if the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on earnings and employment by race, ethnicity, gender and age.

“Through this research we want to understand whether nurses are leaving the workforce and whether large numbers of baby boomer nurses are retiring earlier than they had planned,” Buerhaus said. “If the pandemic is causing nurses to leave the workforce or retire early, then health care delivery organizations could be in trouble.”

“It is imperative that our workforce research include an analysis of the pandemic’s impact on nursing assistants, licensed vocational nurses and professional registered nurses, especially those working in nursing homes,” said Terry Fulmer, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation who recently served on the independent Coronavirus Commission on Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes. “The illness and deaths in these settings have taken a terrible toll on residents and families, and on these essential staff who are the backbone of care for our most frail older adults and people with disabilities.”

Finally, the researchers will forecast the number of registered nurses through 2030. Prior to the pandemic, forecasts indicated that the number of registered nurses would increase by at least one million. Now, experts say, that number is unclear.

Over the past 20 years, Buerhaus, Staiger and Auerbach have conducted numerous of studies of the nursing workforce. Regardless of the pandemic’s effects on the nursing workforce, Buerhaus said, one thing is clear: nurses will continue to be as crucial as they always have been.

The report will be completed by 2022, but throughout the project, key results will be shared in quarterly reports and peer-reviewed journals, as well as through webinars and interactions with government workforce organizations, professional associations, researchers and others.

“Nurses serve as critical links between patients and other members of the care team, especially during a health crisis,” said Mary Jo Jerde, a nurse and senior vice president, UnitedHealth Group Center for Clinician Advancement. “Understanding the impact of the pandemic on the workforce will help policymakers, health care delivery organizations, academic institutions, payors and the public work together to better support nurses now and into the future.”

“Nurses are the most admired, trusted and respected of all professions in the United States,” said Susan Hassmiller of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “They keep people safe, they assure quality, and they advise people and comfort them. We need to know the impact this pandemic is having on nurses of all races, genders, regions and settings. We cannot let this pandemic deflate the culture of this vibrant profession.”